Kat Callahan

The top bishop in Finland's Lutheran Evangelical Church publicly apologised for the way that the church had supported wider Finnish society in discriminating against LGBT individuals.

Archbishop Kari Mäkinen apologised for decades of mistreatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Finns by the church. He made his comments at the public forum SuomiAreena.

When I think of the outside pressure and treatment that we have been guilty of displaying towards sexual minorities as a church and as a society for decades and how it still continues, I think it's time for an apology. Without any explanations or prevarications.

Mäkinen said he hoped his apology would serve as an example to others to recognise that "cruelty is cruelty" and discrimination against sexual minorities is unacceptable.